Disability Now. Our voice, our lives.
Presenter Paul Carter is joined by business coach Robin Hindle-Fisher and disability consultant Phil Friend. They discuss unexpected positive consequences from an examination of the extra costs disabled people face which was carried out by Scope, the charity which funds Disability Now. Also on the agenda some research from Nottingham University’s business school which suggests …
Continue reading “The Download: Chasing disabled customers and bad news from the workplace”
In these times of deep uncertainty, Professor Mike Oliver takes a satirical look at how the opportunity of choosing to end your life early might be extended and made more equal. The film Me Before You and subsequent responses seems to have re-ignited the debate about whether we need a Dignitas-type system for “assisted dying” …
Providing support for a blind friend is about more than making sure he avoids obstacles, says Daniel Levene, as he prepares for the onset of his own blindness. When Wayne describes the day it’s like he is describing a Rothko painting. “It’s red with a thick band of yellow across the top and a thinner …
Continue reading “Wayne’s world: a friend and carer’s perspective”
Why do girls with autistic spectrum disorders so often go undiagnosed as opposed to boys, asks Penny Gotch. The idea of autism as a “boy thing” is extremely prevalent. In fact, one of the UK’s most notable researchers, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, described the condition as a form of “extreme male brain”. There’s a gender bias …
Continue reading “Girls not aloud: gender bias in autism diagnoses”
According to a survey by the National Union of Students, 78% – the vast majority – of British university students report that they have experienced mental health issues within the last year. Further, a third report having had suicidal thoughts. At the start of this new university year, Erin Stewart reflects on these figures and …
Continue reading “Degrees of distress on the university campus”
Writer Richard Willis looks back on his experience of mental illness and asks what helped make him better, what made things worse and whether recovery is possible. Yes, I did feel better after that first injection of Clopixol in Woodcote Ward at the Mayday Hospital in London back in 1987. I sat down at a …
Avowed man-about-town and dedicated socialite Mik Scarlet was surprised to find that he was thoroughly at home at the helm of a two-person yacht skimming across the water. In my life I have had the good fortune to try some amazing things. I have flown a hang glider and abseiled down a 17-storey building, despite …
A Body Undone: Living On After Great Pain (A Memoir) by Christina Crosby Reviewing this deeply personal account of life after impairment, Sophie Partridge finds some things with which she can identify and others which trouble her more. As a Born (a disabled person with a full-on congenital impairment), I’m often nervous approaching something written by `an …
Continue reading “Book Review: A Body Undone: Living On After Great Pain (A Memoir)”
Disabled walking enthusiast Sue Kent had two reasons for climbing Britain’s highest mountain, a celebration with her family and just to see if she could. Following its recent re-measuring Ben Nevis now stands 1,345 metres above sea level and for much of the year is snow-capped. I had chosen to do this challenge with my …
Disabled children should be praised for their difference and not congratulated on their apparent normality, says disabled mother Jane Renton. Normal has always been a synonym for acceptable, and so it is when your disabled children don’t look disabled. Complete strangers feel entitled to remark that children are lucky to appear normal. It’s not just …
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